Talking About Socks
by Entwife Incognito
Summary: A bit of fluff as we await the finale. The love Jane has for his gift of socks from Lisbon is a small phenomenon in the show. It's hard to laugh when we know how much they mean to him. Lisbon talks socks to Jane, on her goodbye visit. One-shot, AU. Strong situations. If you don't like that, stop now. Disclaimer: I own nothing about The Mentalist.


Lisbon texted Jane. She knew he was hiding out in the Airstream, nursing the wounds of their pending separation. 'Will you let me in? We need a proper goodbye.'

Jane stared at his phone in shock. What could she possibly have to say to him? She hadn't cared enough to tell him herself that she'd accepted the D.C. job. Much less that Pike had proposed marriage! Everything in him wanted to scream, but his was the exhaustion of the emotionally destitute. His phone buzzed again.

'Here I am!' It was followed in a very few moments by a solid knock on his door. He had to let her in. He would have to be strong for her this one last time. He was just exhausted enough to give the appearance of emotional ambivalence.

Lisbon mounted the steps as he opened the door, taking in his chalky skin and shadowed, sunken eyes. A white-hot stab of fear for his health seared through her belly and into her lower back. She had to get him to talk truth to her, whatever it was. But, how? He had no fight in him at all, would fold to anything she suggested. But that wouldn't do.

"Jane. I have to talk to you. I can't just leave."

His jaw set and he backed up a couple steps. "Okay. Talk."

This wasn't going to be easy. Trying to collect her thoughts she looked down at his Chaplinesque shoes, grubby and worn. She knew the socks she had given him were on his feet. They always were. How could a pair of hiking socks mean that much to a man? But she knew why. Maybe he would talk about socks.

"I really have only one question. But I would like a full and truthful answer to it."

"Anything. I'll tell you anything."

"Tell me about your socks."

A pale pink flush filled his face, traveled to his throat and heated his ears an even brighter hue. He looked at his feet, lifted his trouser legs a little with his hands inside the pockets to show his ankles. Heavy knit socks in a cream color blared against his suit, making the incongruity of his shoes a mere variation of choice.

He shouldn't have said it, but he wasn't prepared to answer a question so personal to him. "Is that a question, Teresa?"

She crossed her arms and nearly spat, "You think this is a game? Patrick?"

He thought she might be mocking him by the use of his first name.

Lisbon met his eyes. They were suddenly moist and going pink, too. Narrowed, in pain no doubt, judging by the position of his lower lip, stuck out in a mild pout. Softening her voice, she tipped her chin. "Come on."

"You gave them to me."

"I know. You needed them desperately."

"You never gave me anything before."

"That's not tr-." But it was. She hadn't given him anything else. Not birthdays or Christmas, nor even on a whim. He had given her many things, large and small, some valuable only in sentiment and at least one, functionally priceless.

Her heart fell to her stomach and it must have showed on her face because she heard him say softly, "It's okay."

But she lowered her head. It wasn't okay. Not at all. Thoughtless benign neglect of a friend. She knew instinctively it was an expression of commitment avoidance. Glaring. Lisbon lifted her face to gaze calmly into his eyes. She swallowed her sorrow, having difficulty because her mouth and throat had gone dry. She would make that up to him somehow.

"But we were talking about your socks, Jane. Valuing a gift . . . never before given . . . is one thing. Putting them on and never taking them off is another."

"I wash them every night."

"If you like them so much, I'll buy you more."

Jane looked at her, his lips seeking to control the emotion that welled in him. She would buy him more! She wanted to look after him! "I, I would love that."

"You could have ordered more yourself."

"It wouldn't be the same."

"It's not about the socks, is it?"

He slowly shook his head. "No."

"It's about me."

"Showing that you care. Yes. Physical proof. It meant so much to me after more than two years of separation."

"I'm sorry you've been that deprived and lonely."

"No. Your socks took that away. For a while. I . . . cherish them."

"You don't cherish the socks, Patrick."

"I do."

"You're lying to me. You said you'd tell the truth."

He frowned. He had told the truth. Just not all of it. She was leaving with another man, a man who had proposed marriage. She was going far away and he would probably never see her again. He couldn't stop a few hot tears from flowing down his cheeks. She couldn't. She couldn't expect him to completely expose his heart and then leave him behind, make her life with someone else.

"I'm not sure you deserve this part of the truth, Teresa."

She took his hand then, holding it loosely by the fingers. "You're probably right about that. But I'm asking for it."

"You'll destroy me. And take everything I live for with you. Far away. And forever."

Her eyes were dense pools of green, sparkling with tears. When she tugged lightly at his fingers, he looked into them and saw the pain, the want.

"I promise. I promise I won't destroy you." Her face constricted with barely controlled emotion, her voice a rough whisper. "Tell me about cherishing the socks."

"I . . . I cherish them because they're from you. I cherish them because I cherish you." He wiped tears from her face with the hand she didn't hold. "When I wear them, you're touching me. When I handle them, I'm touching you. It's, It's all I have." He choked the sobs in his throat, but tears poured down his face, stinging his eyes with their fight to get out. His chest burned with unspent emotion.

"No. No. It's not all you have. Not at all."

"Please don't give me hope where there isn't any."

"Just tell me the rest of it."

He swallowed, determined to get control of himself before he spoke. His breath sobbed, huffing from his chest no matter how he tried to hold it in. He made a strangled attempt to clear his throat and forged on before he lost total control.

"I'm in love with you." Oh! The weight off his shoulders, the first complete breaths he'd taken for months as he admitted the thing that had twisted him inside for so long. His breath was a sighing gale of relief. But it would end there. Something that should have made them happy, but would only drive her away from his worthless hide.

But she hadn't backed away from him. Not yet. Instead, she offered soft reproaches and commiserations, smoothing his hair back from his hot forehead, wiping his cheeks with gentle, caring fingers.

"It's all right. It's all right." It was almost a moan, but carrying something that healed.

Recovering with a sharp intake of breath, Jane looked at her, concentrating hard. She was all softness . . . and caring . . . and love. "Teresa?" He looked at her in questioning disbelief.

"I'm in love with you, too."

"You're in love with me? But you're going away. With someone else . . . "

"I had to move on. I couldn't get you to tell me if you felt anything beyond friendship—beyond partnership—for me. I couldn't stay and pine any longer. I had to get away. And things happened with Marcus, so I went with it."

"But you love me?"

"Yes."

"Not him?"

"No. Maybe we could love each other someday-."

"No! I know I'm not good for you, but if you love me like you say, you can't leave me and go try to love him! You can't. I'll do everything to make you happy. Everything!"

"You're right. I can't." She stood very still and watched him closely. "And I don't want to. I want to make you happy, too."

The next few minutes were a flurry of movement as Patrick pulled her into his arms for an expressive kiss. It told of love, desire, passion and painful deprivation. Teresa answered and both became lost in the wonder of where they would go next, inquisitive lips, gently probing tongues and the pressure of their bodies moving, pressing as they engaged in a sublime struggle to discover how they fit together.

Jane broke away first, loosening Lisbon's passionate grip on him. "Will you stay with me tonight? Something in me doesn't want to believe this, expects it to go away."

"It won't."

"Please. Just stay and sleep in my arms and we can decide what we want in the morning."

"What is there to decide?"

"I want to make love with you then, when I won't have to fight myself from ravaging you."

"Oh, no, Patrick! You're going to ravage me right now, just as your body is telling you. And I'm going to participate in the ravaging. I've wanted you too long and I'm not waiting another minute!"

He threw off his jacket and dragged hers down her arms, then escorted her to his bed with a warm hand on the small of her back, a place he was much accustomed to touch, before their "troubles."

It was over almost as soon as it had started, clinging to each other in a rapidly evolving love expressed first as feral need. They got out of their clothes, helping each other where needed, and crawled into Jane's bed, squirming into place and ready to join. Lisbon's arms wrapped his neck, leverage to lift her hips for him as he prepared to plunge.

"Wait. I want to see." She shifted to watch his begging male flesh, tight and full, waiting for her as Jane used his hand to find the source of all the wet. He grunted and kissed her when he slipped a finger in.

"I want _you!_ I want to see you push yourself into me the first time."

They both looked down as he took hold of himself and started the tip to the slick of her soft core. Lisbon reached down to caress him briefly with her fingers, feeling the soft skin over a cock that felt like hot carved stone.

"Slow," she said, taking her fingers away. "And then I'm all yours. Let me have it."

When he saw the lust in her dark eyes, he groaned and slowly pushed into her, the enveloping heat vaporizing his control. He was nearly in when she shoved her hips the rest of the way and called out, arched against him and panting.

It was over very quickly, Teresa pushing against the mattress with one leg while the other gripped his waist, freeing his hips to move on her as his instincts directed. He filled her, rolled into her sensitized flesh. She felt the surface changes in his skin and structure as he moved and felt her own skin as she moved along him. Ecstatically overwhelmed by the layers of sensation, she could only cling to him as her body rocked hard into intense orgasm. Jane squeaked her name as she drew him into climax, holding him tightly inside as the strong glove of her body thumped around him. She kissed his neck and ears, making everything in him thrill as he emptied into her.

He fell asleep immediately. Lisbon knew he was exhausted and bore Jane's weight happily until he slipped out of her. When she wiggled from under his body, she pulled him to curl against her side and he released a moaning sigh, settling his shaggy head and stubble-misted cheek next to her breast, tucking his fingers lightly under her ribs. Her desire to feel that scrabbling cheek as his mouth consumed her breasts would have to wait until morning.

When they had fallen together on the bed, Jane still held his last article of clothing, one of his precious socks. Lisbon felt it at her hip and tugged it out, rubbing the worn places and squeezing its consoling bulk. For him, those socks had stood for their love somehow. At some point it was all he had. The thought carried his pain to her heart and she cried for it, for what he had suffered. She had suffered, too, so tears for herself mingled on her cheeks. As she brushed the sock softly on her face, she remembered that Jane had done the same when he had taken her gift. The joy on his face, she had seen as some of his silliness. But as she shared that joy now, all she could feel was his warm, true heart beating for her as hers did for him. Caressing his cheek with the sock, she watched him cuddle closer, smiling in his sleep as she slipped into peaceful oblivion.


End file.
